For Having Nothing To Say I Sure Have A Lot To Say
I have very little to say today. This is actually typical for a Monday post. The late-night Sunday post means I have to think of TWO posts in the space of about 12 hours. The results usually--sadly--speak for themselves, despite my obvious genius for covering deficiency of inspiration with piles of sweet-smelling bullshit.

Today, however, I got nothing. No over-arching big-picture schema to hold a post together, no clever satire to stimulate your intellects. I'm afraid Monday is going to have to be all about self-stimulation, Bucketeers.

Instead I offer two random observations, completely unconnected.

One:

I walk past the specialty fancy-drinkin' sodas on the way to get my Gatorade each week at the grocery store. Like a good prole I shake my head at the extravagance of $6 for a six-pack of gourmet root beer. Sure, the root beer we buy has a harsh chemical-acidic taste to it, but you can get 12 cans for $2.50.

But this week, it was on sale for $4. So like a good consumer (and very bad prole), I bought it. Actually, they were all out of the root beer, so I bought the same brand's (Henry Weinhard's) version of Vanilla Cream soda.


Normally I don't drink stuff out of bottles because of my phobia of putting glass in my mouth left over from my days as a lightbulb-eating midway carny freak. Plus it just looks kind of poncey.

As a(nother) service to my readers, I will tell you what Henry Weinhard's Vanilla Cream Gourmet Soda tastes like so you don't have to buy it.

Not very vanilla-y or particularly cream-ish. It tastes like honey. But all watery. And with bubbles.

Hope that helps.

Two:

How did I get a copy of iTunes on my computer and why can't I stop messing with it? I replaced my entire computer a few months ago, including a complete hard-drive wipe and upgrade to Windows XP. I did not used to have iTunes. I doubt it came bundled with my motherboard, video card or memory. So what exactly is the deal?

I haven't paid for anything off of it yet. I know that when the hymen of individual song downloads is broken it can never be re-sealed, so I've been careful. I was lucky the first time when Napster got shut down.

But now with iTunes, I don't know how much longer I can hold out. I mean, I can download "Look What You've Done" by Jet without having to get the rest of that crappy AC/DC ripoff album.

And please, no one tell me to get Kazaa or anything else where I can get MP3s for free. I think I'd rather take up heroin. It would be less all-consuming.

Ooh, I just thought of a third thing!

Three:

I ran out to Barnes & Noble the other day with a $30 book budget. I came away with two Douglas Adams books (Life, the Universe and Everything and So Long and Thanks For All The Fish), the next Terry Pratchett in the series (Jingo) and, just for giggles, Friedrich Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil. I've never read Nietzsche, but he writes short books with lots of formatted breaks in them (paragraphs, chapters, etc.), so I figure what the hell.

Budget constraints precluded me yet again from picking up America the Book by the Daily Show people but I did see that the with-it fun-makers at American Spectator named it Worst Book of the Year. I read the review and wow, I've never read a more vomitously envious pile of insubstantive pettiness since the "Dear John" letter I got when the Bearded Lady left me for the Wolf-Faced Boy.

I miss the midway.

That's all I have for you today. Come back tomorrow with your expectations duly lowered.


This post on the Narcissus Scale: 8.5


Pops
- posted by Pops @ 1:21 PM